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Gallery 1C03 515 Portage Ave, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9
Gallery 1C03, "Sanctuaries," 2021
Join us on zoom Tuesday, December 14 at 11:30 am CT for "Exploring the Universe". Hassaan Ashraf from Take Home BIPOC Arts House and Shaneela Boodoo from Patterns Collective will engage in conversation with Rajni Perera in conjunction with Gallery 1C03's exhibition, Sanctuaries. They will explore topics such as sci-fi, world building, futurity and modes of making within Perera’s past and present artistic practice. Sponsored by Take Home BIPOC Arts House.
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Gallery 1C03, in partnership with Graffiti Art Programming's Studio 393, presents a virtual art education program. Art educators Sage Dahl and Nic Kaneski will lead a two part workshop related to the Sanctuaries exhibition with Studio 393’s After School Leaders Program. The program includes exploring the virtual exhibit and its themes and engaging in a creative response through zine making. ⠀
Participants will gather through zoom meetings on Thursday, December 9 and Monday, December 13 from 5:00 - 7:00 pm. All folks between the ages of 15 and 28 years old who are interested are welcome to join.
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Virtual Community Meet-Up for Black Creatives Hosted by The Black Mosaic
Sunday, December 5, 2021
4:30 - 6:00 pm CST / 5:30 - 7:00 pm EST on Zoom
An honorarium will be offered to participants. Maximum 10 participants.
Join The Black Mosaic for an extra special zoom hang-out session with other Black creatives!
The Black Mosaic is a hub for Black creatives to give/receive feedback, and share artistic works or works-in-progress – without the pressure to showcase “finished” work. Usually within sessions of The Black Mosaic, participants discuss their own works/works-in-progress and any inspirations they have. This time, participants will gather for a (virtual) “field-trip” to experience the online Sanctuaries exhibition curated by Patterns Collective and presented by Gallery 1C03, then regroup on zoom to discuss our thoughts, including what moved us about the show. It’s reminiscent of going to see a gallery show in-person with friends, then chatting all about the cool art afterwards! Themes to be discussed include but are not limited to: gender, race, community, storytelling, self-determination/actualization and the use of virtual reality spaces.
Malik Asoh is the founder and community arts facilitator for The Black Mosaic. They are a multidisciplinary artist with a current focus on poetry, collage art and zine-making. Malik will facilitate the hang-out session.
We are pleased to announce our fall program, curated by Patterns Collective. Sanctuaries features works by women-identified artists Anique Jordan, Akum Maduka and Rajni Perera in a custom designed virtual architectural space created by Odudu Umoessien.
The presentation of this exhibition in a virtual space is key to the curatorial intention of Patterns Collective which is to bring together works that explore how Jordan, Maduka and Perera express perceptions of the female body within a contemporary frame removed from conventionality. This exhibition revisits the idea of the self-gaze in digital realms and explores agency in self-portrayal and self-determination. Each artist’s work addresses themes of the body and identity from a lens pointing back at their singular and collective selves, given the harsh realities faced by racialized bodies navigating colonial spaces.
The exhibition’s website and affiliated online programming will be in multiple community spaces that open discussion about intersecting identities such as race, gender, diaspora, globalization and its disconnects. Themes of discussion that we anticipate include: community building, storytelling, desire and social performances.
VISIT THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition can be viewed online at https://thesanctuaries.ca beginning September 20, 2021.
ONLINE EVENTS
See below and Gallery 1C03 website for information about exciting events presented as part of this exhibition program!
As part of the Sanctuaries program, curatorial team Patterns Collective invited respected writer Chimwemwe Undi to craft a creative response to the exhibition. The result is Undi's brilliant poem, entitled "Spring, or Spiral in Three Parts", which is now available to read on the exhibition website and is also included in the exhibition brochure.⠀
Chimwemwe Undi is a Black poet and lawyer living and writing on Treaty 1 territory. Her writing and performance has appeared in Brick, The Walrus, and Border Crossings, on CBC and BBC World, and at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, among others.
A recording of the most recent zoom event in the Sanctuaries exhibition programming, "Vanishing: A Conversation with Akum Maduka", is now available to watch online. Maduka discusses her work with Rachel Smith, a student in Dr. Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba’s University of Winnipeg combined honours undergraduate and graduate class on Genocide and Postcolonial Witnessing. Together, Akum and Rachel engage with Akum’s artistic visions and commitments and questions about postcolonial perspectives to representations of female oppression and disappearances. In particular, they bring in connections and responses to Titilope Sonuga’s poetry collection, This Is How We Disappear. This event is introduced by Dr. Anyaduba and sponsored by The University of Winnipeg’s Women’s and Gender Studies department.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gallery 1C03 is grateful to our program partners: The Black Mosaic, La Maison des artistes visuels francophones, Take Home BIPOC Arts House, and The University of Winnipeg’s Critical Race Network and Women’s & Gender Studies department. We acknowledge financial assistance for Sanctuaries from the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council.